


from fall to fall

by sparrowvanya



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Gen, The Master (Doctor Who) centric, masterversary, my attempt at connecting the dots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:49:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28950678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrowvanya/pseuds/sparrowvanya
Summary: Good. If she ever knew what we did to her…Gallifrey would burn.Or: what happened to the Master between The Doctor Falls and Spyfall?
Relationships: Missy & The Lumiat, The Doctor/The Master (implied), The Master (Dhawan) & The Lumiat, Thirteenth Doctor & The Lumiat, Twelfth Doctor & The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16
Collections: Fiftieth Masterversary Big Bang





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> well... this one's been coming for a long time. i've been working on it on and off for over a year now, and here it is.
> 
> this is fully written and i'll probably be posting a chapter every weel

_ She’d done it. Stabbed her own past self in the back, left him to regenerate into her. She was going to stand with the Doctor. _

_ The rest of the backstabbing really should have been expected. _

_ Saxon had been angry enough to turn on Missy in his dying moments. _

_ “It’s time to stand with the Doctor,” she had said, before he had started to splutter and hiss about how he would  _ never _. _

_ She’d turned to leave, confident as ever. “I will  _ never _ stand with the Doctor.” echoed from behind her, angry as always and firm in its finality. “Yes, my dear, you  _ will, _ ” she tossed over her shoulder. _

_ That was when the laser hit her in the back. _

_ The pain highlighted every nerve in her body, sending her spiraling down to the ground without the ability to catch herself. _

_ “Don’t bother trying to regenerate. You got the full blast,” he quipped from the elevator doorway with a smile on his lips. _

_ She can’t stop herself from laughing. _

_ “You see, Missy,  _ this _ is where we’ve always been going.  _ This _ is our perfect ending. We shoot ourselves in the back!” _ __   
_   
_ __ She’s worn out the last of her energy, pain still frying her from the inside out. Missy lowers herself to the ground, blackness dancing at the corners of her vision, listening to the ding of the elevator as it leaves. 

_ She hears nothing more. _

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

She wakes up to find the back of her dress soaked through with water.

Leaves crackle underneath her as she shifts slightly, trying to remember where she is (and  _ who _ she is) but then she shifts slightly too far and there’s  _ pain- _

Shot, maybe. Definitely in the back.

She’s lying on the ground in a forest, trees towering above her, and someone shot her in the back.

And her name is Missy.

Things are slowly coming back to her, bits and pieces at a time slotting into their assigned places in the puzzle that is her mind, thousands of years of memories and experiences hiding in fog until she finds them and puts them back where they belong.

Gritting her teeth past the pain of moving, she presses a hand on the ground and tries to push herself upright. She almost makes it before the leaves under her hand shift, sending her painfully back down. But she isn’t the kind of person who gives up after one attempt, that much she knows.

There’s an umbrella—  _ her _ umbrella— sitting just a few inches away from her fingers. Maybe if she stretches as far as she can she could—

Her fingers snag on its fabric. 

Slowly, moving as carefully as possible, she gets a good grip on it, then shifts it so its tip is shoved into the ground.

Then, ignoring her own pain, she shoves herself to a sitting position in one single motion.

Stars dance along her vision as the pain in her back flares sharply, fading slowly. It’s a sudden shock, but she can push past it. She has to. There’s something in the forest with her (although it isn’t a forest, it’s a ship, isn’t it?) and she needs to  _ get out. _

Wasn’t there supposed to be someone with her?

Yes, there was someone. There had to have been. A close friend, a lover,  _ someone. _ Someone had been there with her, there  _ for _ her. She’d expected them to be there when she woke up.

The Doctor. His name was the Doctor. And he’d been her first friend, her closest friend, her  _ only _ friend. He was supposed to be there for her.

And he wasn’t there.

Half of her was still waiting for the sound of his TARDIS through the trees, that wheezing, groaning noise that made stealth near impossible without careful recalibration. The other half’s hope was dying.

She didn’t know how long she sat there, one hand clinging to her umbrella, trying to piece her brain back together and trying to bring back her hope, steadily draining away. The trees blocked a majority of the light, leaving her in the darkness.

Well, it really did make sense, honestly. Shot in the back by her own past self, left for dead by her best friend…. well, probably former best friend now. She’d finally gotten his friendship back, finally  _ stood with the Doctor, _ and he’d left her again. The thought was enough to light a spark of rage in her chest. Nearly a century trapped in a vault, with him as her only constant company (and Nardole, but she didn’t really think he counted) and she got  _ abandoned _ right when she needed him most.

Well. She was putting her foot down.

No more.

He wanted to leave her? Then she’d leave him too. (At least until she inevitably got lonely again and went back to him. He was still her only friend, and even she got lonely sometimes.)

But maybe. Maybe she could find him again. Maybe, if she was the person he wanted her to be, he’d come back, just like he always did.

Maybe this time he’d actually stay.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

It takes her even longer to muster up the will to drag herself to her feet, shoving all her weight onto her umbrella and driving its tip even further into the ground. There are noises in the distance that she can recognize as Cybermen, and staying on the ground…. well, that would just get her killed.

Again. For the second time in one day.

The thought of it reminded her that she had, in fact, been killed. By that logic, she should be regenerating. This life wasn’t the last of her current regeneration cycle, so theoretically she should be in a new body right around now. But— and she looked down at her hands as if to prove her point to herself— there was none of the telltale glow of regeneration, none of the fizzing inside.

_ Don’t bother to regenerate. You got the full blast. _

He’d been right. Of course he had been, he was  _ her. _ Somehow she’d almost expected him to lie. Because, well….. he was her.

Letting out a gasp as she staggered to the next tree in front of her, trying her best to steadily move away from the sound of marching Cybermen, Missy estimated that she probably had about a day left to live. Maybe two, if she was lucky, and if she didn’t push herself too hard.

She was already pushing herself too hard. She wasn’t going to make it to two days.

Through the gaps between the trees, opening farther and farther as she keeps moving (slowly and painfully, but moving nonetheless) the old farmhouse comes into view. Even her frazzled (and dying) mind had managed to trace her old path through the leaves and undergrowth; her two selves hadn’t exactly been careful while walking to their deaths, heel marks in the ground marking a line right back to “home base.”

It never once crossed her mind, on the way there, that the Doctor might not even be there anymore. That he’d left the ship without her. In her mind, he was there, waiting for her. She’d made a promise that she’d come back to him. (It hadn’t been in those words, of course, but a knife in her palm and tears on her face should have gotten her message across, right?)

She staggers past the craters in the lawn and flings open the door.

The house is completely empty.

Even through the pain (and she was starting to get used to it, that constant burning in her back) her hearts sink at the sight.

Missy can’t even stay to see if they’d ever come back. The Cybermen are coming, just like they always would, and she can’t stick around for when they arrive. She needs to escape this ship, needs to escape her constant orbit around that black hole, distorting time and gravity around itself, and the only way to do that is what the Doctor had made her swear not to do.

She needs to take the elevator back up to the top floor, leave the Cybermen’s timestream, let them develop and advance on their own time while she makes it out… well, not quite alive, but not quite dead either. Somewhere in between. Maybe blow up the ship while she was at it. By the time she made it out alive, the vast majority of the humans onboard would be dead, with the rest soon to follow. The Doctor wouldn’t lecture her on-

Oh, wait. He was gone. He wouldn’t lecture her anyway. But maybe she’d still stick with the plan, just in case.

Back to the elevator, then.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

It feels like it takes an eternity to make it back to floor one. Maybe it was, down on the lowest levels. Up on the higher floors it’s only been minutes since she first went down.

The life signs on the display have all but stopped multiplying. The vast majority of them must have already been converted, with only a handful left on the higher levels left.

Moving quickly, she primes the ship to explode.

It doesn’t take much. The ship is designed to be piloted mainly by humans, so the controls are as simple as possible. Missy puts a code into a single screen— snamuh, humans spelled backwards, how  _ simple _ — and, before she actually sets the final timer, makes sure to actually locate the escape pods. Wouldn’t want an accident where she didn’t get away in time.

There are thirty seconds left on the timer when her pod detaches from the ship.

She’s far enough away to observe the spectacle safely when it actually blows.

One more Cyberman menace, unable to take over the universe.

She refuses to admit she did it for Bill Potts. Refuses to even admit that she knew the girl’s name. Because, of course, she was the Master and didn’t bother with such petty things as  _ learning names. _

The Master typically didn’t bother with guilt either, but there was a first time for everything, she supposed.

Maybe she didn’t have a true destination anymore. Maybe she didn’t have a  _ vault _ or a  _ TARDIS _ or a  _ home _ or a  _ friend _ …

But she’d always have Gallifrey. The Doctor had brought it back, hadn’t he? Trapped it in a time bubble?

With hands much steadier than they had been just hours earlier, she types in the coordinates for Gallifrey and adjusts them to compensate for the time displacement. It’s incredibly difficult to calculate without a TARDIS, and Missy makes a mental note to refind one. (Not that she’d actually remember once she regenerated.)

There must be some kind of gap in the bubble, a chink in Gallifrey’s armor left when it was sealed in, because Missy manages to make it in without a problem. Maybe it was a backdoor, left for emergencies. Technically she shouldn’t have been able to make it through without a TARDIS, but she opens the escape pod doors to an orange sky and red grass nonetheless.

Last time she’d been to Gallifrey it was burning. It was, honestly, strange to see it intact.

Why was she back home? She didn’t know.

The Citadel stands in the distance, dramatic as ever, suns glinting off the dome.

There are Time Lords moving through the grass towards her. Two of them.

The pair stand tall in full robes and collar, making Missy wonder what in the universe she’d done to get their attention before she even landed. (A better question might have been what  _ hadn’t _ she done. The list was actually quite long.) She freezes in her ship’s doorway when she notices them, choosing to stay in sight and lean casually against the open door instead of attempting to duck inside and out of sight. It simply wasn’t her style.

“Well, hello there, you two,” she says before either one of them can open their mouths. “They sent a welcoming committee, didn’t they?”

One of the two opens their mouth, barely getting out a “No—” before they’re interrupted. “Of course they did. They love me, don’t they?” 

“That’s not—”

She shuts them up with just a face. “Of course it is. Now—” stepping down from the doorway, she stumbles, and even though she tries to hide it, Missy knows the two see it, “ —how about we get this show on the road?”

The two grab her by the arms. It isn’t all that friendly, although they treat her with more care (and a healthy dose more fear) than a criminal. Before he can be interrupted, one of them says, “We’ve been ordered to take you before the High Council. And, before you ask, no, we weren’t told why. Just following orders.” He’s young, still near Academy age, if she had to guess. First regeneration still. The other seems a bit older, definitely nowhere near as young as the first. Quieter, more experienced.

They take Missy to the Citadel.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

The High Council doesn’t even bother to fully assemble in the Panopticon to talk to her. There’s barely half of them in the room meant for many more, and they barely glance up when she enters, still being led by her two guards.

One of them— Phivea, she remembers the woman likes to be called— stands up, clearly taking the job of telling Missy why she was here. She wasn’t an idiot, of course. If the High Council had summoned her the moment she set foot on the planet, they had a major concern to bring up to her. Maybe they’d decided she’d make a good Lord President or something.

“Master, we have brought you here today to—”

“Missy,” she interrupts the other Time Lord. “Not Master. Missy.” As much as she liked the other name (and  _ oh, she did _ ) it just hadn’t felt like it fit her in this regeneration, and in the past century or so it had felt…  _ wrong. _

Phivea blinks before continuing, with mutters rising from the rest of the Council around her. “Very well then. Missy. We have brought you here today on an issue of greatest importance.” She pauses for a breath, and Missy rolls her eyes. Issues of “greatest importance” to the Time Lords are typically the boring ones, like saving a timeline. Then they’ll beg her for help, say they’ll be in her debt if she does what they ask, and when she does, they leave her in the dust again. (Or she leaves them, but she never expects them to actually  _ care _ when she does that.)

“We need to force your regeneration.”

It’s Missy’s turn to be stunned. Eyes wide, she tries to form a dignified response like usual, but the words don’t come out.

“The Matrix predicts disaster for Gallifrey if you continue on your current path. A regeneration is the best option to attempt to prevent this.” There’s a glitter to Phivea’s eyes as she talks. Either she’s enjoying this far too much, or those are the start of tears. Knowing her and how faithful she’s always been to the Time Lords, Missy is pretty sure it’s the first. 

But this could be the chance she needed to keep living. She’s dying (ever so slowly, but she is) despite every single cell in her body insisting she had to live. One of the Council’s methods, however painful, might be her only chance at survival. (Other than a return to bodysnatching.)

So she steels her long-fried nerves and nods. “I agree.”

More mutters rise from amongst the crowd. “Oh,” Phivea says, looking shocked. “We were planning for you to require more convincing.”

“Well, I’m convinced. You’ve convinced me. Now do the thing—” and Missy waggles her fingers at them— “so I can get on my way again.”

Taken aback, Phivea stammers for the guards, and they come in and take her by the arms again, a different pair from before. 

This time, they take her to the end of her life.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

The Elysian fields are kept in a room deep underneath the Citadel.

Anyone would think that devices meant to control regenerations would have been highly used by the upper classes, desperate for power and control. But the side effects of the devices, as well as some of their other qualities, made them better suited for a different use.

Time Lord torture devices.

They provided such control over a regeneration that they allowed not only choice of a body, but also manipulation of memories, personality…. even how painful the regeneration was, ripping apart every molecule of a body and rearranging them, hence “torture device.” 

Missy knew them well.

She was being marched toward their room.

The lingering pain from the wound that had killed her would be nothing if the Time Lords’ age-old grudge came into play. Missy— the Master—- was everything they hated: a traitor, a rule breaker, an interferer. She wouldn’t be surprised if they gave her “death” just a little bit more of a  _ kick, _ just for that. But, seeing as she’d survive at the end of it (unlike her current slow death, regeneration suppressed) she’d be fine with it eventually.

The fields were originally intended to be operated by the Time Lord using them, then were later completely redesigned by the High Council to allow outside control. The originals still existed, of course. Missy had planned to steal one before the Time War, back when she’d run out of regenerations fully.

She’d never exactly gotten around to it, what with all the bodysnatching and being thrown into black holes. Just the usual.

She’d never actually known of anyone who’d used one.

When they turn it on, she screams.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

_ Make sure she doesn’t remember any of this. I don’t want her getting angry when she comes back to her senses. _

_ Of course. We wouldn’t want that at all. _

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

There’s a new woman standing there when the machine turns off, disoriented and confused. She’s a few inches taller, with shorter hair falling over her ears. Missy’s clothing seems strange on her frame.

The world is a blur as she tries to figure her new self out. Someone’s asking questions that sound like they’re coming from underwater. There are more people in the room and she can’t tell who they are.

Somebody calls her Master. It doesn’t feel right.

“That isn’t my name,” she manages to choke out through the confusion. New accent. It’s always strange when that happens.

The one questioning her, who had been relatively close to her face, pauses and backs off.

“I don’t know what my name is,” she gasps through the fog, “but that isn’t it.”

There are pieces of her missing, she can feel it. It was like someone had ripped out base pieces of her personality, leaving her piecing the rest of herself back together, except it was a puzzle with two thousand identical pieces and only one real solution.

_ Like a puzzle from the Toymaker, _ she thinks, then realizes she doesn’t know who the Toymaker is.

Mostly, to be honest, she just feels… kind of light. Light and free, like someone’s just lifted a weight off her back that she didn’t know she was carrying.

She needs a name, doesn’t she? 

But she doesn’t know.

She turns to the small group that was waiting for her.

“I don’t know who I am.”


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well uhhh. guess who immediately forgot their posting schedule-

_ How much of this will she remember? _

_ Not much. As far as she knows, she stole that Elysian field herself. _

_ Good. If she ever knew what we did to her… _

_ Gallifrey would burn. _

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

She doesn’t actually know how she ended up on Earth. It’s all a bit of a blur for her still, to be honest. There’s a TARDIS behind her (she can tell it’s hers, by the way it tickles at the edge of her mind) and a dark street in front of her, streetlights stretching off into the distance. Houses line the road, mostly dark with a few scattered lit windows. It looks like a typical Earth street, probably in England.

Why was it always England? Why not a  _ different country _ for once?

To be fair, she could leave any time she wanted. She had her TARDIS, knew how it worked.

She just didn’t know where else to go, except maybe the time vortex. Which, to be fair, she’d seen far more times than England.

Nevertheless, she heads back into her TARDIS and starts flipping switches. England— Earth in general— isn’t home to her. Probably never will be.

She isn’t the Doctor, of course. (Even though maybe she wants to be.)

The thought makes her pause in place, still trying to move and spin around the console of her TARDIS (still so young, still so  _ plain _ ). Who was she, this time around? New regeneration, new TARDIS, no name…. She wasn’t the Master this time, that was for sure. Not the Doctor either. But she wanted to do something  _ good  _ for once.

Maybe that was who the woman was. Trying to do good, but not the Doctor. Not the Master, either. Somewhere in between. She didn’t really have the words for it, not with her head in the state it was post-regeneration (she was going to have a  _ massive _ headache when the artron energy wore off) but it was…. something like that.

She’d need a name. Something that could reflect that feeling, and something she could be known as.

The Doctor. What did the Doctor do?

Something…. something to do with light. Something with her own personal twist.

She thinks. It takes effort to come up with a name, sometimes.

_ Lumiat, _ she finally thinks.  _ The Lumiat _ .

It fits. Maybe just a bit too well.

Finally managing to get the TARDIS into the time vortex, she lets herself take a breath and step back. The world is starting to spin slightly around her, shades of white blurring together, and if she wasn’t careful, she’d probably end up passing out.

So the Lumiat heads into the depths of the TARDIS to try and sleep off the regeneration.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

She’s still wearing Missy’s old dress, ripped and torn and muddied and too short for her.

It’s not the most comfortable thing to sleep in, but she passes out anyway.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

The Lumiat wakes up in the dark hours later. 

She’d need to try and piece herself together a bit more. Even with the sleep it still felt like she was out of place, pieces missing.

Maybe a change of clothes would help.

Her TARDIS had a much smaller selection than the Doctor’s  _ (don’t think about him, he didn’t stay _ ) but she manages to find something simple that feels more right than anything else she has. A simple two-piece suit, dark green and white. It doesn’t feel entirely right, not yet, but it works.

Near the end of her past life (pain, a shot in the back, foggy memories; she tries not to think about it) she’d been losing the hope she’d worked so hard to gain. She’d thought she’d been abandoned by the Doctor, left to die. Those had been the last thoughts of a desperate mind, clinging to the one part of her life she’d truly loved. But now, with her mind (slightly) more clear, agony no longer racing through her veins, there were other possibilities in the universe. He’d been trying to free that town, hadn’t he? Back on the ship?

He could have been stuck on the ship when it got blown up. The Cyberman girl (the Lumiat couldn’t remember her name, not at all anymore) could have converted fully and killed him. There were so many possibilities past abandonment. (Even then, some tiny part of her clings to the anger and the fear she’d felt. The pair had been all she’d had for centuries; they wouldn’t leave her just because she told them to.)

He was still out there. He had to be, of course. He was the Doctor. One of these days she’d run into him again, just like always, and she’d ask him. Maybe he’d answer, maybe he wouldn’t, but either way she’d know whether it was worth it to keep trying with him.

Until then, she’d just have to be the person he wanted her to be. He might have left her (and it might have hurt and it might always hurt) but she wouldn’t stoop to his level, not this time around.

The time vortex is hers, free for travel. Maybe she’d try out the Doctor’s way of life. Choose a distress call, try to save the day,  _ don’t _ kill anyone in the process.

It certainly sounded better than being alone for years on end.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

It’s on one of these…..  _ missions….. _ of hers that she first runs into him.

The Lumiat can feel that he’s a Time Lord, even from a distance. The suit he’s wearing — purple over plaid,  _ why? _ — makes him stick out from the rest of the planet, wearing shades of blue and white. Clearly he’s the one responsible for the signal she’d picked up, standing in the town square, arms outstretched, as the crowd tries to escape, a grin slicing through his face like a sword slash.

By now, she’s ditched the original suit she’d had for something white (just to blend in, she’d said at the time, but now she was actually getting  _ attached _ ) so he doesn’t notice her coming up behind him, scanner out to determine what she’d already basically figured out. There were so few Time Lords left in the universe now that the chances of him  _ not _ being her future self were slim to none.

She should have known this whole “being good” thing wouldn’t last. It was all too easy to slip back into old habits, especially after a regeneration, when everything was new and undefined. Anger had always been all too common, back when she was the Master. She might not remember much about the past, but she remembers that.

The beep of her scanner catches his attention.

He turns around, scanning her from head to toe with dark eyes.

“You aren’t supposed to be here,” he says, pressing his lips into a line.

“Why not?” She knows why. It’s because of the timelines. She asks anyway.

He doesn’t even bother to answer, turning back to the building that had once been the political center for the entire planet, now slowly burning to the ground, holes blasted in the sides. There’s no way she could stop it.

The silence drags for what feels like several minutes (even though she knows it’s only seconds, watching the flames dance over the rubble) before the Master speaks.

“Does it hurt?”

“What?”   
  
“Does it hurt knowing that all your work gets undone? Knowing that after all the  _ good _ you’re trying to do, that you’re still evil? That you can’t just escape all this?” His words are bitter, sharp like flying blades. She wonders if they cut him too.

“You don’t even know what I’ve done yet, do you?” This style of monologue is so familiar to her— the number of times she’s done it herself, and this technically counts as one of those times— that she knows sitting back and letting him just  _ talk _ is the best option, as long as she tries to look interested and respond occasionally. “I went to Gallifrey. And do you know what I found?” 

She raises an eyebrow, shooting him a glance. “Of course not. It hasn’t happened to me yet.”

“....It was rhetorical. I know it hasn’t happened yet, I’m trying to be  _ dramatic. _ ”

“Of course you are.”

The Master sinks his hands into his pockets. “I decided to look in the Matrix. It’s been a while since we’ve really had access to that. And I found…..” He trails off, turning to look her in the eyes. “Well, I’ll let you find that one out for yourself. It’s still a while away for you, if I have my timelines right. But what I did after that?” He pauses for dramatic effect. “I burned them to the ground for what they did. To me. To you. To…..”

_ (To the Doctor, he wants to say. To Theta Sigma. To our friend. It doesn’t come out.) _

It’s a lot to hear, but also not at all a surprise. The Lumiat is the  _ different _ regeneration, the odd one out, the one who doesn’t solve all her problems with things that create more problems.

Gallifrey burning, though…..

She hadn’t seen the last days of the Time War, not that she remembered, but what she’d managed to find about it and her own home planet in general was enough to piece it together.

She’d imagine that Gallifrey burning at her own hands would end up looking something like that final battle had.

_ You must have felt like a god, _ she’d apparently said to the Doctor once upon a time, the first time she’d seen him after the War. The Lumiat wouldn’t be surprised if her future self, the one standing directly in front of her, agreed with that.

She slaps him. Hard.

He reels backwards, hand coming up to cover his cheek. “What was  _ that _ for?”

“For being so  _ self-centered _ that you burn our  _ entire planet _ to the ground over something from the  _ Matrix! _ Which,  _ and you should know this, _ has  _ alternate histories _ too! Did you even take the time to verify that it  _ happened? _ ”

There’s still a look of shock on his face. “...no?”

The Lumiat rests her face on a hand, sighing. “My future self is an idiot. Why am I not at all surprised by that?”

“Hey!”

She takes a step towards him, back towards the building he was burning. (and wasn’t that interesting, now? Burning a planet, then more fire. He really must have felt like a god after all.) The gap between them closed, leaving just around a foot between the pair.

“Maybe you’re right. You’re my future self, I can’t escape this. But I can choose who I am  _ right now. _ And right now, I’m saying you’re an absolute  _ idiot. _ ”

“Well, that’s offensive.” The Master makes a fake-disgusted face, but somewhere in his eyes she can tell he’s having a bit of fun with this. (But also it hurts, deep inside. Once again, he isn’t good enough. Not even for his own self.)

“Good.”

He presses a button hidden somewhere in the folds of his sleeve (probably on a strap around his wrist or something along those lines) and he’s gone, glaring as he goes.

His TCE clatters to the ground behind him. She bends down to scoop it up, tucking it away in one of the pockets of her suit.

She lets out the breath she didn’t realize she was holding. There’s still a building burning in front of her. It needs to be put out. The Lumiat is back to her original purpose.

Somewhere deep in the back of her mind, the memories of the encounter start to fade.


	3. three

Missions go well until suddenly they get shaken up.

It’s been…. a while. The Lumiat doesn’t actually know how long. Time blurs together when you’re alone, seconds blurring into minutes into hours into days into…. even more. She’s had a handful of companions (not imitating the Doctor… she just wanted someone to talk to, her TARDIS oh so quiet with only her inside) but none have stayed for longer than just a handful of weeks, maximum. 

People…  _ know who she is. _ It’s a new feeling: showing up and being recognized, not with fear but with delight. It isn’t common, but when it  _ does _ happen, it’s a nice thrill, a beautiful start to a mission that will hopefully manage to go well.

Sometimes, they mistake her for the Doctor, and even though the Lumiat knows that’s never her, that never will be her, she should be offended at the mere comparison, she smiles and waves and doesn’t ever correct them.

It all goes well until the day that she finally runs into the Doctor.

A routine mission. A rogue…. something or other, trapped on a spaceship with a handful of crewmates who seemed all too willing to pull out their guns. Get in, calm them all down, get the alien out. Quick and easy.

Except, ten minutes in, the familiar wheezing groan of a TARDIS fills the halls. The outline of an all-too-familiar blue police box starts to show itself along one of the walls, and the Lumiat lets out a quiet groan.

Of course the Doctor had to show up. This was exactly his type of place: pop in with whichever companion he had in tow that day, save the day easily with a smile on his face, let himself bask in the admiration of whoever he’d saved for a bit, vanish without a single thought of the consequences.

The Lumiat had tried to be different. She’d tried to stick around and take care of the fallout of whatever she’d done this time, at least at first. After a few decades (....had it been decades? Longer? Shorter?) she’d slowly just… started leaving.

That was something she could allow the Doctor, now. After a while, it all just piles up.

The door of the police box creeps open, and even though the Lumiat is  _ very _ aware that she hasn’t met the Doctor in this regeneration yet, she can’t help but brace herself slightly.

There’s no way she could have expected the blonde woman who walks out.

She’s the Doctor. She has to be. One Time Lord always knows another, and if there was anyone the Lumiat could recognize better than herself, it was the Doctor. Plus, the bright yellow suspenders, gray coat, rainbow striped shirt and blue culottes would stick out anywhere. Only one  _ idiot _ in all the universe would dress like that.

But… she’s different.

There’s something hard deep in her eyes, something she’d never seen in the Doctor before this. Something that basically screamed “don’t mess with me right now, I’m already on the edge of a breakdown and I’d like to be left alone.” Even though the woman is smiling still, seeming bright as can be, the faint dark circles under her eyes tell a different story.

The Doctor steps onto the ship, planting her hands on her hips. “I heard you guys have a  _ tiny _ little problem on board?”

One of the crewmates steps forward — one of the ones who’d stayed back while the Lumiat had been trying to help, hovering at the edge of the group, waiting and watching. She thought his name was something like Lei. “We do. But,” and he gestured to the Lumiat, “she already showed up to take care of it.”

The Doctor’s eyes flick over to the Lumiat, and for a second, all she does is stare, frozen in place.

“ _ Time Lord, _ ” she finally manages to say.

The Lumiat presses her lips together, meeting the Doctor’s eyes, and nods.

Something that might be a tear shows itself at the corner of the blonde’s eye, but it’s gone before anyone else could possibly notice it.

“Well, two of us will be better than one, won’t it?” That smile is back, stretching itself just too far to be natural. 

“Of course it will be,” the Lumiat says carefully.

“Well then. I’m the Doctor. What do you need me to do?”

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

The alien’s safely back on its own natural planet within minutes, posing little danger to the crew or anyone else. Having two TARDISes on hand came in handy for quick transportation, as somehow the little creature had ended up several lightyears away from home.

At the end of it all, the crew had stayed with their ship, leaving the two Time Lords to pilot the TARDIS (the Doctor’s, of course; she’d insisted) and drop the creature off. Tension filled the air, stretched tighter than too-small clothes after a new regeneration.

The doors close behind the whatever-it-is they had to transport, and silence settles back over the pair.

It’s broken just a second later when the Doctor speaks.

“Do you know?”

“About what?”

“About Gallifrey. About what happened to it.”

The Lumiat takes a second to think, wracking her memory for anything. “Well, you sealed it away after the Time War, and I haven’t returned since, I believe.”

“You  _ believe? _ ” the Doctor says, sounding incredulous.

“There are… a handful of gaps in my memory. And by a handful I mean quite a few. I had a life before this regeneration… a different name… and I believe the two of us were friends at one point, although I’m not quite sure when.” This Doctor is so different from the vague pieces that the Lumiat’s managed to piece together from her memories and research, all sharp edges where before there’d been someone soft. Maybe there were centuries and centuries in between the last memory they shared, time the Doctor had lived through without the Lumiat.

The one thing she was sure of: they had been  _ friends. _

The Doctor hums. “Recent regeneration, then?”

“I don’t believe so, actually. Not sure how long it’s been, but definitely more than just a handful of days.”  _ Long enough that it all should have come back by now. _ “The first thing I can remember clearly is landing on Earth in my TARDIS.”  _ I don’t know how long it’s been. _

“Well. What  _ do _ you remember, then?”

“Not much.” The Lumiat rests her arms on one of the TARDIS’s railings. “I’m pretty sure I was called the Master.”

The Doctor physically recoils as if she’s been slapped. “You….  _ what? _ ”

“The Master,” she repeats. “Awfully pretentious name, to be quite honest. Not sure where it came from.”

“You…..” The Doctor shakes her head. “Get out of my TARDIS.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Get out.” Suddenly, she’s…  _ angry, _ yes, but there’s fear in there, sadness, something even deeper than that. “Do you even know what you did? What you’ve taken from me this time? I don’t want to see you. Not this you, not  _ any _ you.”

“Alright.” It feels somewhat strange, for the Doctor to snap like that. Weren’t they friends? Hadn’t they spent decades together? “If that’s what you want, I’ll leave.”

The TARDIS sets itself back down where it had first landed on the spaceship, staying just long enough for the Lumiat to close the door behind herself before the familiar  _ vworp vworp vworp _ fills the room again. Before long, the outline of the blue police box the Doctor loves so much is fading from the room, leaving an empty space behind it.

They were friends.  _ They were friends. _

Why in the world would the Doctor kick her out like that?

Every little shred of memory she’d managed to piece together (all the smiles, and longing glances, the times they’d traveled together and the times they’d  _ stayed _ together) all seemed out of context now. It was possible that this Doctor was from some point in the far off future when they’d had some kind of falling out, but….

It just didn’t feel right for some reason.

Maybe it would be best to try and avoid the Doctor for now. Just try and take a break, do some more research on her past, recover memories if she could. Whatever faulty regeneration had wiped her mind near-clean wasn’t a common thing, and without any form of access to the Matrix (....what had happened to Gallifrey, exactly?) there was no way she’d manage to find any information on it. Anything relating to regeneration or the study of it was kept closely guarded by the Time Lords in an effort to keep their secrets from getting out into the wider universe, and for all these centuries, it had somehow managed to work, even with the handful of renegades who’d left for good. 

Maybe it would be best to avoid Gallifrey for a while, despite how much she wanted to know what had happened to her. The way the Doctor had been talking… it had been  _ bad. _ As much as she wanted to know, if it would leave her in danger, it would be best to stay away.

Just stay away, do some research, and stay out of trouble.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

_ Stay out of trouble  _ doesn’t last long.

It takes just days for the Lumiat to show up on a battlefield, a place that had been peaceful just hours earlier, and find her own past self.

Picnic blankets still littered the ground, blowing in the wind, and yet the people who should have been sitting on them stand with weapons in hand, killing each other slowly.

Something in the atmosphere. Something wrong. Temperance field, maybe?

(“Yeah, there’s a war on, or hadn’t you noticed?”)

(“Oh, no, sweetie. There isn’t.”)

That’s when she sees  _ her _ .

Purple dress. Hair in some messy updo that she can’t remember the steps to create anymore. A boy standing by her side, looking barely into adulthood. He glances around nervously, looking anywhere but at the purple woman.

Missy holds a spear in hand, waving it around like a threat.

Where the Master is, chaos must follow, it seems. Now that she’s following the chaos instead, it’s starting to feel strange.

Missy calls her the Doctor.

Had the Lumiat truly changed so much? She must have. The woman she was standing in front of was barely recognizable as herself, delighting in the chaos around them.

(“Hello, Doctor. I see you’ve regenerated. I like it. All girls together.”)

(“Oh, Missy. I am very disappointed in you.”)

(“Well, I aim to displease. Have I let you down? Have I let the Academy down? But most of all, have I let myself down? Actually, no. I have to say, I am giving myself an A*. So why don’t you pop that in your screwdriver and sonic it?”)

Honestly, the Lumiat really isn’t in the mood for dealing with the Master in any form today. (Not even herself, really.) So she disables the atmospheric temperance field and leaves, listening to Missy yell from behind her.

(“You’ve got a real savior complex, you do know that, don’t you? Like a moth to an inferno.”)

Maybe so. But did that make the inferno a future moth?

Did that even make any sense?

Another distress call on her radar. A woman releasing a pack of giant rats along with an accomplice.

Of course. Of  _ course _ she’d keep trying to get the Doctor’s attention, even when she wasn’t actually the Doctor.

Cats chased rats, and honestly she really wasn’t in the mood to put effort in here, so the old cybercat pride it was. The Lumiat had picked it up on an older planet, one known for their robot production, when she’d been called about some form of… was it dissent amongst the workers? Was it a dangerous machinery malfunction? They were all starting to blend a bit.

(“Thank goodness you’re here, Doctor.”)

(“Not the Doctor.”)

(“And thank goodness you happened to have a pride of cybercats on you! How lucky was that?”)

(“Not lucky.”)

This time, she leaves before her past self can even start a conversation. How would she explain her own existence? It felt near impossible.

It would be especially impossible to convince Missy she wasn’t the Doctor. The Lumiat remembered those days: holding onto the desperate hope that he was still out there, that after the last time they’d seen each other he hadn’t made a single stupid choice that would end it all.

Another distress signal. A spaceship, this time. Except when she arrives there’s nothing happening.

Except then they pick up a signal from outside. 

(“Hiya! Thanks a mil for getting in touch. I wasn’t going to bother you as I’m sure you’ll be rushed off your feet organizing the evacuation of your ship and everything.”)

(“...What?”)

(“Don’t mind me! I’m just about to blast a massive great hole in this meteor here. It’ll shatter into millions of pieces creating an almighty space storm so you may want to think about running away.”)

That’s all she catches before she realizes she needs to  _ move, _ and  _ now. _

Kroton magnet. The one she’d picked up from that one junkyard planet. Seffilun… 56? 23? 41? One of those, probably. There were too many of them at this point.  _ Humans _ and their constant creation of trash, it was honestly starting to get slightly obnoxious. 

It was only good for a quick localized timestream reversal, but it would work.

(“Time can’t run backwards!”)

(“That’s not strictly true, poppet.”)

(“Who are  _ you?” _ )

(“I’m the kind of person who fired a kroton magnet into the heart of the explosion. You’re welcome!”)

Missy’s on the ship when the Lumiat pops back in, watching the unraveling of her plans in near-complete disbelief. That boy from the battlefield is still by her side, still looking afraid. He cringes back, sneaking glances out of the corner of his eyes whenever he thinks she isn’t looking.

Missy doesn’t show it, but the Lumiat knows she sees them all. She sees them, and she revels in them.

Missy threatens murder. Missy calls her the Doctor. All in a typical day with the Master.

Might as well throw a new variable into the equation, hmmm?

(“Don’t I remind you of anyone else?”)

(“Like who?”)

(“Like…. you?”)

A millisecond of shock flutters across her face, quickly hidden by complete and utter disbelief.

The Lumiat knows the reaction is real, because she  _ is _ Missy, the same way Missy is every other regeneration of herself. It’s exactly what she would have done in Missy’s place.

It’s exactly what she did when she was Missy. She can remember it suddenly, as vividly as she’d lived it: looking up into the face of the woman who claimed to be her own future self, standing firm in her belief that the other one was  _ wrong. _

Then, just as suddenly as it had arrived, the memory vanished and left her in the dark once more.

No reaction. Keep her face neutral. It was how Missy had remembered her, and it was how she must stay.

(“Remember the Valeyard?”)   
  
(“...Yes.”)

(“Yes. All that rage, all that pain, all that hatred….”)

(“He was magnificent. What’s your point?”)

(“Imagine the opposite of that, and apply it to yourself. Consider the Master without rage, without pain, without shadow.”)

(“Wash your mouth out.”)

Missy doesn’t believe her. Missy may never believe her.

Missy kills Bertram, that boy from the battlefield, without a moment of hesitation. He was nothing more than a plaything, of course.

The Lumiat makes sure she holds a funeral, and she makes sure it’s as over the top as it could possibly be. Missy gets ashes up her nose. It’s all worth it.

(“There will come a night so dark, so soon, that you will look into your own eyes and despair at what you’ve become.”)

(“I really don’t think so.”)

The world from when she was Missy is nearly gone, blurred around the edges even at the best of times and blank at the worst. The end, everything just before her regeneration, is the worst of the worst. The Lumiat remembers, though, that she hadn’t been ready to change.

Until, suddenly, she had been.

There was a reason for it, there had to be.

Maybe it was simply a spark fanned into a flame, planted long ago by someone she no longer remembered meeting.

Maybe it was up to her to change herself.

(“You were my Frankenstein, Missy. But you didn’t create the monster. You destroyed her.”)

Missy craved attention. All she wanted at the current moment was for the Doctor to  _ notice  _ her, no matter who the Doctor actually was. If it was possible… the Lumiat could change the path her past self was on, set her own life into motion, under the guise of fulfilling that goal.

The thought of it didn’t even disgust her like it should have. Like it would have just… however long before. Just because  _ she _ was the Master didn’t mean she didn’t deserve the same treatment as everyone else in the universe.

(“How can pure goodness be such a bad thing?”)

(“At least the Doctor’s flawed.”)

Just a push. Just one single tiny push.

(“You’re going about it all wrong, you know. To catch a Doctor, you have to think like a Doctor. Look for distress signals and follow them.”)

(“If you think, for one eensy weensy moment, you’re going to persuade me to do any rescuing, helping, or there-thereing, you…  _ you…. _ you are very much mistaken.”)

(“I don’t expect  _ you _ to do any such thing. But, if you want to find the Doctor…”)

(“...follow the cries for help!”)

Something simple. Something she could take control of easily. A distress call. Earth, somewhere in the 800s, back in primitive times without too many technological variables.

(“I know what you’re doing. I’m not going to stop a viking invasion just to prove a point. ...But I could. If I wanted to. But I don’t. So I won’t. I’m not gonna.”)

She will. She just doesn’t realize it yet. What’s done is done, time set in paths unchangeable.

Or changeable with the right amount of effort, but she doesn’t want Missy to know that. Not that she didn’t already, but… oh, whatever.

Time’s already been meddled with in this part of the timestream. The Vikings are actually alien invaders. It’s been a  _ long _ time since the Lumiat had used any form of hypnosis, previous regenerations having less of an affinity for it than those before. It seems to be much,  _ much _ easier this time around.

She’s not sure if she likes that.

Another jump. Another planet, this time. Nothing too dangerous this time, but they  _ do _ find an abandoned bear cub, and the Lumiat decides this would be a perfect time to teach Missy about doing good deeds. All they’d have to do is find the cub’s mother, correct?

Of course, it’s the perfect time for Missy to start doubting her own future self’s existence all over again.

(“See, now what I don’t quite understand is… Where did you come from?”)

(“I told you. You created an-”)

(“An elysian field, yes, yes. The thing is, you  _ can _ use an elysian field to destroy. To eliminate the…. what did you call it? The snide, the snark, the murder? But you can’t create something that wasn’t there before, so…. If you’re really me with all the bad stuff taken out, why is there anything left of you at all? I mean… where did all the…  _ kindness  _ come from?”)

(“Oh, my sweet, sweet Missy, it was always there! It’s just buried underneath all that insecurity and loneliness.”)

(“Baloney. Now I’m going to have to kill the bear.”)

Being alone with Missy, without distractions, without others….. it forces harsh truths into the light. She’d never gotten along with herself, always having a gift for pointing out exactly what she didn’t want seen. Talking to herself was no exception.

(“Hang on… _ hang on. _ Should you not know all of this? I mean, seriously, if I’m going to turn into you, then haven’t you done this already? I mean, haven’t you done  _ all _ of this before? But, you know, in a much sexier body.”)

(“I don’t remember…. I destroyed you almost entirely. Most of what I was, what you are, was lost.”)

The Lumiat doesn’t want to say it. She doesn’t want to admit it.

(“I looked us up. It wasn’t an easy read.”)

(“Too many big words?”)

She doesn’t want to admit that she misses the  _ her _ she’d once been. Back when she’d been complete, an entire person, unlike the  _ her _ she is now.

She’s happy as she is, of course. It’s what the Lumiat was designed for. It’s why she exists.

But doesn’t she want to  _ know? _

They find the bear’s mother, or rather she finds them, with only a handful more murder threats from Missy. She’s getting tetchy, now. Worse than usual. One last chance.

But she’d had a  _ chance. _ A chance to kill the bear and its mother. And she hadn’t taken it. Instead, she’d scared them away.

It’s an incredible improvement. But she needs  _ more. _

Trying to mirror their first meeting, the Lumiat takes them to a battlefield. Two nations at war, paused over a single egg, incredibly valuable. Some simple negotiation should solve this, shouldn’t it?

Except she hadn’t accounted for her own past penchant for creating chaos.

The egg itself sits in Missy’s palm now, delegates from both sides staring at it in absolute disbelief.

How had the Lumiat let herself get her hopes up enough to believe Missy would ever change? She, of all people, should know Missy wouldn’t.

Except she didn’t know. She might never know.

The tissue compression eliminator in her pocket feels like it’s growing heavier by the second.

(She doesn’t know why it’s there. How is it there? Where had she managed to get a TCE? She hadn’t used one in…. four regenerations?)

It’s in her hand before she can even question it.

(“A tissue compression eliminator? Bit old school. And not very nice.”)

(“I confiscated it. From you. When you weren’t looking. Give them back the egg… or you’ll be mini, not Missy.”)

(“You can’t kill me. It would literally be suicide. You kill me here, and I won’t be alive to create you in the future. I’ll pop up back at Bertram’s picnic of death, and you’ll never exist.”)

(“Not true. An elysium field creates a disconnect in the sequential pathways, like a temporal tourniquet. It slices the present from the past, so there’s no paradox. Why do you think the Time Lords forbid it?”)

She’s making her words up as she goes, about 93% sure half of them aren’t true, but it isn’t like Missy knows that. Yet.

Without a second to hesitate, she pulls the trigger.

And misses. 

The world blurs, a smear of white flying at her face.  _ The egg. _ She reaches up a hand and catches it.

Then pain shoots through her side,  _ burning and burning and burning and _

The egg falls and smashes.

(“I am  _ sick _ of the sound of my own voice.”)

She blinks and she’s back on Missy’s TARDIS. She blinks and the backs of her hands are glowing. She blinks and she’s dying.

(“Did it feel good? Being a wee bit bad again?”)

It doesn’t. It  _ can’t. _ It shouldn’t.

It does.

(“Old habits die hard. Bad habits die harder. And we die hardest of all.”)

How long is this going to take? How long can she stay alive in this body?

(“How good will you be in your next life? We’re never the same person twice.”)

(“In our hearts we are.”)

(“But you stripped away the essence of my-”)

(“I uncovered the reality of who you truly are!”)

(“I am  _ not _ a good person!”)

(“No! Not yet! But you  _ want  _ to be!”)

She’s burning and falling. Burning and falling, burning and falling.

The TARDIS is gone. The Lumiat is outside, and there are strange voices approaching.

No time left.

She finally lets go.

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me on tumblr: [@sparrowvanya](https://sparrowvanya.tumblr.com/) or [@keeperofthematrix](https://keeperofthematrix.tumblr.com/)


End file.
